The disclosure of the present application is a trailerable lift for moving environmental control units such as air conditioning and heating units. The lift is configured to securely lift, carry and deposit the control unit using three degrees of movement while at the same being compact and lightweight to allow the lift to be readily loaded onto and carried by a truck or trailer. Additionally, the lift is configured to minimize adverse weight effects of the unit applied to the ground or landscaping of the property as the lift and associated unit traverse the property grounds receiving the unit.
An environmental control unit comprises a large, heavy and bulky configuration. A typical enclosure of the unit has a “footprint” on the order of up to about two feet by about three feet, and may be six feet tall or more. Such a unit may weigh 400 to 1500 pounds. Once delivered to the location, the unit must be removed from a delivery truck or trailer and then placed in the proper location adjacent a home, an office or other building structure or within the home, office or building structure. This process can be difficult, in particular because of the size, weight, and location of the unit's center of gravity. The moving process of the unit can be more difficult in some terrains such as elevated or uneven, landscaped terrains.
During installation of the unit, workers or laborers hand-carry the units from the delivery truck to the installation location. The installation location may be supported a few feet off the ground by elevated brackets extending from a side of the building structure. Due to the physical parameters of the control unit, four to six workers hand-carry the unit from the delivery truck to the installation location. This moving process leads to difficult working conditions and leads to uneconomical use of the workers as the traversed ground often comprises uneven, or slick or disturbed soil resulting in injured workers and damaged ground. At the elevated installation site, the workers then jostle the unwieldy control unit which can lead to more injuries and/or improper installation of the control unit.
Sometimes, workers may use a skid to assist in transporting the unit from the delivery truck to the installation location. The unit's weight on the skid, however, damages the ground between the delivery truck and the installation unit. For a newly constructed home or office, this ground is typically landscaped and the unit installer must compensate the property owner for damage applied to the landscaped grounds. Additionally, these workers must manually lift the unit off of the skid and set the control unit on the installation site.
A forklift does not traverse well on uneven or moist grounds. Further, a forklift incorporates two degrees of movement which does not work for lifting and setting the control unit on the installation site when the forklift rests on uneven ground or when the forklift attempts to set the control unit on suspended brackets in a confined area of the building structure. Accordingly, workers and property owners require a lift that carries and deposits the control unit while eliminating or minimizing worker injuries and adverse weight effects of the unit applied to the ground or landscaping.